The native and aboriginal crab-apple.

May 23.

You have a wild savage in you, and a savage name is perchance somewhere recorded as yours. And wilder still there grows elsewhere, I hear, a native and aboriginal crab-apple. 
. . .

This genus, so kind to the human race, the Malus or Pyrus; Rosaceæ the family, or others say Pomaceæ.

Its flowers are perhaps the most beautiful of any tree. I am frequently compelled to turn and linger by some more than usually beautiful two-thirds-expanded blossoms. If such were not so common, its fame would be loud as well as wide. Its most copious and delicious blossoms. 

But our wild apple is wild perchance like myself, who belong not to the aboriginal race here, but have strayed into the woods from the cultivated stock , – where the birds, where winged thoughts or agents, have planted or are planting me. 

Even these at length furnish hardy stocks for the orchard. You might call one 

• Malus oculata; 
• another M. Iridis  M. cum parvuli dæmonis oculis, or Imp-eyed;
• Blue-Jay Apple, or M. corvi cristati; 
• Wood -Dell Apple (M. silvestri-vallis); 
• Field-Dell Apple (M. campestri-vallis); 
• Meadow Apple (M. pratensis); 
• Rock Meadow Apple (saxopratensis ); 
• Partridge or Grouse Apple or bud [sic]; 
• Apple of the Hesperides (Malus Hesperidum); Woodside Apple; 
• Wood Apple (M. silvatica); 
• the Truant's Apple (M. cessatoris); 
• Saunterer's Apple (M. erronis vel vagabundi); 
• the Wayside Apple (M. trivialis); 
• Beauty of the Air (decus aëris); 
• December-eating; 
• Frozen-thawed (gelato-soluta or gelata regelata); 
• the Concord Apple (M. Concordiensis); 
• the Brindled Apple;
•  Wine of New England (M. vinosa); 
• the Chickaree Apple;
•  the Green Apple (M. viridis); 
• the Dysentery or Cholera-morbus Apple.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 23, 1851

See May 18, 1857 ("Interesting to see a wild apple tree in the old cellar there . . . Call it Malus cellaris, that grows in an old cellar-hole.") See also Wild Apples ("There is, first of all, the Wood-Apple (Malus sylvatica); the Blue-Jay Apple; the Apple which grows in Dells in the Woods, (sylvestrivallis) also in Hollows in Pastures (campestrivallis); the Apple that grows in an old Cellar-Hole (Malus cellaris); the Meadow-Apple; the Partridge-Apple; the Truant's Apple, (Cessatoris,) which no boy will ever go by without knocking off some, however late it may be; the Saunterer's Apple,—you must lose yourself before you can find the way to that; the Beauty of the Air (Decus Aëris); December-Eating; the Frozen-Thawed, (gelato-soluta,) good only in that state; the Concord Apple, possibly the same with the Musketaquidensis; the Assabet Apple; the Brindled Apple; Wine of New England; the Chickaree Apple ; the Green Apple (Malus viridis);—this has many synonymes; in an imperfect state, it is theCholera morbifera aut dysenterifera, puerulis dilectissima;—the Apple which Atalanta stopped to pick up; the Hedge Apple (Malus Sepium); the Slug-Apple (limacea); the Railroad-Apple, which perhaps came from a core thrown out of the cars; the Apple whose Fruit we tasted in our Youth; our Particular Apple, not to be found in any catalogue,—Pedestrium Solatium; also the Apple where hangs the Forgotten Scythe; Iduna's Apples, and the Apples which Loki found in the Wood; and a great many more I have on my list, too numerous to mention,—all of them good.")

See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau May 23

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau\

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021